23. Camille
Camille
The door closes between us. My hand stays wrapped around the cold brass handle until I hear the lock engage from the other side.
I stand motionless in the unlit hallway as a violent impulse rises in me, so physical it feels like a hand shoving between my shoulder blades to make me turn around, break the door down, and run with him.
I told him I love him.
I had been keeping those words to myself as I understood that saying them while he was still angry would only give him one more feeling he never asked to carry.
I didn’t want love to become another argument in my defense—another weight placed on some invisible scale, trying to prove that the good in me might somehow outweigh the harm.
If I ever said it, I wanted the words to be a gift rather than a weapon.
But not a gift thrown at him right as I’m abandoning him.
If I survive the next twenty minutes, he may just kill me himself.
He’s probably cursing me out right this very minute.
He can be angry; the important part is that he is safe.
The laboratory walls are reinforced because several of the environmental systems require independent containment, and the exterior exit gives him a route away from the main residence if the interior becomes compromised.
I have activated the emergency response.
If the alert was transmitted before the network failed, help is coming.
The hallway ahead is almost completely black, lit only by the flashlight on my phone. I reduce the brightness and angle it toward the floor, unwilling to announce my position any more than necessary.
A noise sounds from the western side of the ground floor.
Not glass this time, but a door.
Someone has entered.
Voices follow, low enough that I cannot understand individual words but unmistakably male and unmistakably inside my house.
There are at least two, perhaps three.
I slip my phone into my pocket and begin to move without the light.
I know every meter of this estate. I know where the floorboards complain beneath weight and which hall contains a slight dip near the eastern archway because the foundation settled decades before I purchased the property.
I know which doors swing inward, which open outward, where the furniture narrows a passage enough to force a person closer to one wall.
I know where the security controls are, where spare keys are stored, and where I could wait unseen if I had time to prepare.
What I do not know is how much they know.
The power loss was intentional. The cameras failed in sequence rather than simultaneously, which means someone either understood the system well enough to interfere with it or had spent sufficient time watching to learn its vulnerabilities.
They may have blueprints. They may have information from a contractor. They may just be very competent.
Henri, if he is behind this, has had more than twenty years to become very good at employing competent people, I imagine.
I reach the junction near the library and stop when a thin beam of white light passes across the far wall.
Someone is coming.
I step backward into the shadow beside the built-in shelving and remain perfectly still as footsteps approach. A man appears a few seconds later, moving slowly, one hand holding a compact flashlight while the other remains close to his body.
There is something in that second hand.
A gun.
So Ryan was right to be frightened, and, more importantly, I was right to put him behind the laboratory door.
The man passes within several metres of me.
He wears dark clothing without any identifying markings, and moves not like a burglar but a professional.
My first instinct is to move toward the exterior door and leave the house myself, draw whoever is inside away from the laboratory wing and toward the grounds. If Ryan remains hidden and these men believe I have escaped, perhaps they will follow.
Then a cool, authoritative voice rolls down the polished hallway from the front entrance. “Moreau.”
I freeze, every nerve alive.
“Docteur Moreau.” The voice continues as though we’re sharing tea instead of bullets. “Vous pouvez nous faciliter la tache.” You can make this easier.
A bitter laugh rises in my throat.
Footsteps scuff softly behind me. They’re spreading out. If I let them fan the corridors unchecked, one will reach the laboratory door. It’s reinforced steel, but not impenetrable.
I need to stay their focus.
“J’imagine que c’est moi que vous cherchez.” I assume you’re looking for me.
A flashlight beam snaps up, blinding me momentarily. I lift both hands slowly.
At the far end of the hall, a man—broad-shouldered, perhaps forty, with a bland face that curiosity won’t easily conjure later—trains his weapon on me. “Les mains bien en vue,” he orders. Hands where I can see them.
“Vous avez un problème de vue ? Elles sont déjà levées.” Do you have a problem with your eyesight? They’re already up.
“Plus haut,” the man says coldly, unamused. Higher.
I comply, raising my hands until they’re fully above my head.
Another silhouette glides forward behind him, then a third emerges from an open door to my left. Three of them now, tightening the circle. Perfect.
The first man strides toward me. “Le téléphone.” Phone.
“Dans ma poche.” In my pocket.
“Sortez-le doucement.” Take it out. Slowly.
I slowly lower my hand, keeping the other raised still, and hook two fingers around my phone’s edge, drawing it free.
“Posez-le.” Put it down.
I crouch, laying it gently on the gleaming marble floor. He kicks it across the hall. The crack echoes.
“Où est Ryan Smith ?” the one on my left asks. Where is Ryan Smith?
I stretch my features into an expression of genuine innocence. “Qui ?” Who?
He regards me with a look so contemptuous it stings. “Il loge ici. “Où est-il allé ?” He’s been staying here. Where did he go?
I shrug calmly, although I am anything but. “Je ne sais pas.” I do not know. My answer is truthful enough—in the event he slipped out the exterior door I directed him toward, I have no idea where he’ll appear next.
The man steps closer; I smell his leather holster and sweat-slicked air. “Retournez-vous.” Turn around.
“Non,” I grunt. No.
His gun lifts, promising pain. I weigh my options, then pivot obediently. A gloved hand clamps over my wrist, wrenching it behind my back; another slaps on a restraint. The snap of plastic cinching tight feels like cold iron biting my skin.
I could fight. Maybe break one bone, draw blood—then all hell would break loose, and Ryan would be trapped behind that lab door.
No. Focus.
He hauls me forward, guiding my arms like lead ropes toward the main sitting room, its walls lined with portraits and heavy drapes.
“Où sont les dossiers ?” one of them asks. Where are the files?
“J’ai beaucoup de dossiers,” I say. “Vous allez devoir être plus précis.” I have many files. You’ll need to be more specific.
His grip bitingly tightens. “Les dossiers Legrand,” the middle-aged one hisses. The Legrand files.
“C’est une bonne question. à vrai dire, ils pourraient être n’importe où,” I respond, rather unhelpfully. That is a good question. They could be anywhere, really.
A fist crashes into my right cheek, snapping my head sideways. Pain blossoms along my jaw; blood floods my mouth. My tongue tastes of iron.
“Recommencez.” Try again.
I force my spine straight, working my jaw. “Je ne les ai plus.” I do not have them anymore.
Another blow hammers into my abdomen. The air explodes from my lungs in a white-hot rush, but still I remain upright.
“Où sont-ils ?” Where are they?
“Ils ont été copiés et envoyés à plusieurs personnes.” They have been copied and sent to several parties.
One of the men swears.
I continue before anyone can interrupt. “Quoi que vous espériez accomplir en venant ici, vous arrivez trop tard.” Whatever you hoped to accomplish by coming here, you are too late.
The man holding me strikes me again, and I grin, my expression undoubtedly looking deranged from the blood dripping from my nose and mouth.
His expression becomes ugly. “Il reste encore du travail à faire.” There is still more to do.
Headlights sweep across the front windows as a vehicle approaches on the drive.
The men become more alert, one speaking quietly into an earpiece while another moves toward the front door.
Another moves toward the front entrance.
My pulse slows rather than accelerates.
Henri is coming, isn’t he?
For years, I have constructed him from fragments.
Henri Voclain has occupied more space in my life than many people I have actually met, yet until this moment he has remained abstract, a constellation of consequences surrounding an empty center.
Footsteps sound in the entrance hall. There is the distinct tap of a cane against stone.
Then he appears.
Age has done what age does, but less than I expected.
Henri is seventy-seven now, and the man entering my sitting room no longer looks like the young researcher beside Alberte in those photographs, except around the eyes.
His hair has gone almost entirely silver and is cut neatly away from a face made narrower by time, the skin along his jaw loose enough to betray his age despite the expensive tailoring of his dark coat.
He uses the cane in his right hand, though not heavily; it seems more of an accommodation than necessity, the slight stiffness in one leg suggesting arthritis or an old injury rather than frailty.
He is not physically imposing at all, but for most of my life, he has occupied my imagination as something enormous.
Yet Henri Voclain is simply an old man.
His gaze finds me immediately, and he smiles. “Ah, Camille. Nous voilà enfin face à face.” Ah, Camille. Here we are, finally face to face.
My mother’s killer says my name as though we are old friends.
I say nothing in return. Henri walks closer, cane tapping softly against the floor.
As he closes in, the man holding me forces me down onto my knees, making me grunt.